Merchant advertisement informed item level data predictions

ABSTRACT

Systems as described herein may include predicting item level data based on merchant advertisement information. A transaction pattern may be detected. The merchant advertisement information may be retrieved and parsed to generate a price list. A number of transactions that each shares a common payment amount may be determined and the number may reach a threshold value. Items from the price list may be matched with the common payment amount. The transaction records may be updated to indicate likely item level transaction information. In a variety of embodiments, the likely transaction information may be presented to a user.

FIELD OF USE

Aspects of the disclosure relate generally to big data and morespecifically to the processing and management of transaction data.

BACKGROUND

In an electronic payment processing network, a financial institution mayreceive authentication requests from a merchant for transactionsoriginated from numerous consumers. The financial institution may haveaccess to transaction level information such as account numbers,transaction amounts, billing addresses and the transaction time anddate. The financial institution may not have access to information thatspecifies the details of the individual items in the transactions. Assuch, conventional financial institutions may lack access to the itemlevel information of the transactions, thereby limiting its ability toprovide customers with insights into the purchase history and moremeaningful search abilities.

Aspects described herein may address these and other problems, andgenerally improve the quality, efficiency, and speed of processingtransaction data to offer insights into the details of the transactionby predicting item level data based on merchant advertisementinformation.

SUMMARY

The following presents a simplified summary of various aspects describedherein. This summary is not an extensive overview, and is not intendedto identify key or critical elements or to delineate the scope of theclaims. The following summary merely presents some concepts in asimplified form as an introductory prelude to the more detaileddescription provided below. Corresponding apparatus, systems, andcomputer-readable media are also within the scope of the disclosure.

Systems as described herein may include predicting item leveltransaction information based on the merchant advertisement. A systemmay retrieve advertisement information associated with a merchant in ageographic area within a certain period of time. The advertisementinformation may be parsed to generate a price list for certainadvertised products. A pattern of transactions associated with themerchant may be detected, where a group of transactions may each share acommon payment amount. The system may determine that a number oftransactions that share the common payment amount satisfies a thresholdvalue. Based on the price list, the system may match items from theadvertised products with the common payment amount. Transaction recordsof the user accounts may be updated to indicate likely item leveltransaction information for the matched items. In a variety ofembodiments, an indication of a first transaction may be presented to auser with the likely item level transaction information. Accordingly,the system may be able to support more personalized searches and displaymore personalized advertisements.

These features, along with many others, are discussed in greater detailbelow.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

The present disclosure is described by way of example and not limited inthe accompanying figures in which like reference numerals indicatesimilar elements and in which:

FIG. 1 shows an example of a system for predicting item leveltransaction information based on the merchant advertisement in which oneor more aspects described herein may be implemented;

FIG. 2 shows an example computing device in accordance with one or moreaspects described herein;

FIG. 3 shows a flow chart of a process for predicting item leveltransaction information based on the merchant advertisement according toone or more aspects of the disclosure;

FIG. 4 shows a flow chart of a process for matching items with a commonpayment amount according to one or more aspects of the disclosure;

FIG. 5 shows a flow chart of a process for generating item leveltransaction information based on user interactions according to one ormore aspects of the disclosure; and

FIG. 6 shows a flow chart of a process for parsing the advertisementinformation according to one or more aspects of the disclosure.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION

In the following description of the various embodiments, reference ismade to the accompanying drawings, which form a part hereof, and inwhich is shown by way of illustration various embodiments in whichaspects of the disclosure may be practiced. It is to be understood thatother embodiments may be utilized and structural and functionalmodifications may be made without departing from the scope of thepresent disclosure. Aspects of the disclosure are capable of otherembodiments and of being practiced or being carried out in various ways.In addition, it is to be understood that the phraseology and terminologyused herein are for the purpose of description and should not beregarded as limiting. Rather, the phrases and terms used herein are tobe given their broadest interpretation and meaning.

By way of introduction, aspects discussed herein may relate to methodsand techniques for predicting item level transaction information basedon merchant advertisement. Many users may conduct transactions with thesame merchant in a same geographic area. Many of these transactions mayshare a common payment amount, indicating that the users may havepurchased similar items that have been advertised by the merchant.Payment amounts may be adjusted to back out local taxes, serving asfurther confirmation that the common payment amount may correspond tocertain items promoted by the merchant advertisement. The item levelprediction system may determine the likely items in the transactionsthat share the common payment amount and tag these transactions withitem level data.

Item level data prediction systems as described herein allow forinferring item level data based on a common payment amount. An itemlevel data prediction system may use web scraping to gatheradvertisement information from a merchant in a geographic location. Theadvertisement information may be parsed using natural languageprocessing (NLP), image recognition, a template or Optical CharacterRecognition (OCR) to generate a price list indicating advertised itemsand the corresponding prices. The item level data prediction system maydetermine a pre-tax amount for items on the price list. The item leveldata prediction system may determine a tax rate for the items based onthe geographic area of the merchant. The items from the price list maybe matched with the common payment amount based on the pre-tax amountand the tax rate.

In many aspects, the items from the price list may be matched with thecommon payment amount using a least number of items algorithm or themost expensive items algorithm. Different combinations of items thatmatch the common payment amount may be determined. A meta tag may begenerated for each combination of items. A plurality of optionscorresponding to the different combination of items are generated andpresented to a user to indicate the likely item level transactioninformation. A selection based on the meta tag may be received from theuser. Accordingly, item level transaction information may be generatedbased on the selection.

Item level data prediction systems improve the functioning of computersystems to make predictions of item level data based on transactionlevel information to securely share data between the merchant and thefinancial institution. Item level transaction data is regularly omittedfrom information sent to the financial institution during paymentprocessing. Aspects described herein may allow a financial institutionto make inferences from the transaction level information and offerinsights into the transaction details to the customers. The predictionsystems may utilize publicly accessible information such as merchantadvertisement information and tax rate corresponding to the geographicarea to facilitate the matching process and increase the accuracy andefficiency of the predictions. The accuracy may be further improved byproviding likely item level transaction information as options to theuser and receiving user feedback on the options. The prediction systemsprovide a better representation of the customers' own spending, and mayallow the customers to conduct more meaningful searches into theirpurchase history.

Item Level Data Prediction Systems

FIG. 1 shows an item level data prediction system 100. The item leveldata prediction system 100 may include at least one client device 110,at least one advertisement collection system 120, at least oneprediction server system 130, and/or at least one merchant device 140 incommunication via a network 150. It will be appreciated that the networkconnections shown are illustrative and any means of establishing acommunications link between the computers may be used. The existence ofany of various network protocols such as TCP/IP, Ethernet, FTP, HTTP andthe like, and of various wireless communication technologies such asGSM, CDMA, WiFi, and LTE, is presumed, and the various computing devicesdescribed herein may be configured to communicate using any of thesenetwork protocols or technologies. Any of the devices and systemsdescribed herein may be implemented, in whole or in part, using one ormore computing systems described with respect to FIG. 2.

Client devices 110 may request data prediction sessions, validate dataprediction session requests, and/or obtain item level data as describedherein. Advertisement collection system 120 may collect, parse, and/orstore merchant advertisement information as described herein. Anadvertisement collection system may access public information related tomerchant advertisement and generate a price list of advertised productsand the corresponding prices. Prediction server systems 130 may receivean authentication request from merchant device 140 to authenticate atransaction. The transaction request may include transaction levelinformation such as an account number associated with a user from whichthe transaction is originated, a billing address of the user, a paymentamount and a transaction date/time. Prediction server systems 130 mayfurther receive the price list from advertisement collection system 120.Advertisement collection system 120 may be a system independent fromprediction server systems 130. Advertisement collection system 120 mayalso be a component residing on prediction server systems 130 (notshown).

In an event that there are many transactions such that each transactionmay share a common payment amount, prediction server systems 130 maymatch items from the price list with the common payment amount.Prediction server systems 130 may generate likely item level data forthese transactions that share the common payment amount and transmit theitem level data to client devices 110.

The prediction server systems and/or merchant devices may be associatedwith a particular authentication session. Prediction server systems 130may store a variety of transaction level data, generate the price list,predict item level data, and/or share item level data with clientdevices as described herein. However, it should be noted that any devicein the item level data prediction system 100 may perform any of theprocesses and/or store any data as described herein. Some or all of thedata described herein may be stored using one or more databases.Databases may include, but are not limited to relational databases,hierarchical databases, distributed databases, in-memory databases, flatfile databases, XML databases, NoSQL databases, graph databases, and/ora combination thereof. The network 140 may include a local area network(LAN), a wide area network (WAN), a wireless telecommunications network,and/or any other communication network or combination thereof.

The data transferred to and from various computing devices in item leveldata prediction system 100 may include secure and sensitive data, suchas confidential documents, customer personally identifiable information,and account data. Therefore, it may be desirable to protecttransmissions of such data using secure network protocols andencryption, and/or to protect the integrity of the data when stored onthe various computing devices. A file-based integration scheme or aservice-based integration scheme may be utilized for transmitting databetween the various computing devices. Data may be transmitted usingvarious network communication protocols. Secure data transmissionprotocols and/or encryption may be used in file transfers to protect theintegrity of the data such as, but not limited to, File TransferProtocol (FTP), Secure File Transfer Protocol (SFTP), and/or Pretty GoodPrivacy (PGP) encryption. In many embodiments, one or more web servicesmay be implemented within the various computing devices. Web servicesmay be accessed by authorized external devices and users to supportinput, extraction, and manipulation of data between the variouscomputing devices in the data sharing system 100. Web services built tosupport a personalized display system may be cross-domain and/orcross-platform, and may be built for enterprise use. Data may betransmitted using the Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) or Transport LayerSecurity (TLS) protocol to provide secure connections between thecomputing devices. Web services may be implemented using the WS-Securitystandard, providing for secure SOAP messages using XML encryption.Specialized hardware may be used to provide secure web services. Securenetwork appliances may include built-in features such ashardware-accelerated SSL and HTTPS, WS-Security, and/or firewalls. Suchspecialized hardware may be installed and configured in the item leveldata prediction system 100 in front of one or more computing devicessuch that any external devices may communicate directly with thespecialized hardware.

Computing Devices

Turning now to FIG. 2, a computing device 200 that may be used with oneor more of the computational systems is described. The computing device200 may include a processor 203 for controlling overall operation of thecomputing device 200 and its associated components, including RAM 205,ROM 207, input/output device 209, communication interface 211, and/ormemory 215. A data bus may interconnect processor(s) 203, RAM 205, ROM207, memory 215, I/O device 209, and/or communication interface 211. Insome embodiments, computing device 200 may represent, be incorporatedin, and/or include various devices such as a desktop computer, acomputer server, a mobile device, such as a laptop computer, a tabletcomputer, a smart phone, any other types of mobile computing devices,and the like, and/or any other type of data processing device.

Input/output (I/O) device 209 may include a microphone, keypad, touchscreen, and/or stylus through which a user of the computing device 200may provide input, and may also include one or more of a speaker forproviding audio output and a video display device for providing textual,audiovisual, and/or graphical output. Software may be stored withinmemory 215 to provide instructions to processor 203 allowing computingdevice 200 to perform various actions. Memory 215 may store softwareused by the computing device 200, such as an operating system 217,application programs 219, and/or an associated internal database 221.The various hardware memory units in memory 215 may include volatile andnonvolatile, removable and non-removable media implemented in any methodor technology for storage of information such as computer-readableinstructions, data structures, program modules, or other data. Memory215 may include one or more physical persistent memory devices and/orone or more non-persistent memory devices. Memory 215 may include, butis not limited to, random access memory (RAM) 205, read only memory(ROM) 207, electronically erasable programmable read only memory(EEPROM), flash memory or other memory technology, optical disk storage,magnetic cassettes, magnetic tape, magnetic disk storage or othermagnetic storage devices, or any other medium that may be used to storethe desired information and that may be accessed by processor 203.

Communication interface 211 may include one or more transceivers,digital signal processors, and/or additional circuitry and software forcommunicating via any network, wired or wireless, using any protocol asdescribed herein.

Processor 203 may include a single central processing unit (CPU), whichmay be a single-core or multi-core processor, or may include multipleCPUs. Processor(s) 203 and associated components may allow the computingdevice 200 to execute a series of computer-readable instructions toperform some or all of the processes described herein. Although notshown in FIG. 2, various elements within memory 215 or other componentsin computing device 200, may include one or more caches including, butnot limited to, CPU caches used by the processor 203, page caches usedby the operating system 217, disk caches of a hard drive, and/ordatabase caches used to cache content from database 221. For embodimentsincluding a CPU cache, the CPU cache may be used by one or moreprocessors 203 to reduce memory latency and access time. A processor 203may retrieve data from or write data to the CPU cache rather thanreading/writing to memory 215, which may improve the speed of theseoperations. In some examples, a database cache may be created in whichcertain data from a database 221 is cached in a separate smallerdatabase in a memory separate from the database, such as in RAM 205 oron a separate computing device. For instance, in a multi-tieredapplication, a database cache on an application server may reduce dataretrieval and data manipulation time by not needing to communicate overa network with a back-end database server. These types of caches andothers may be included in various embodiments, and may provide potentialadvantages in certain implementations of devices, systems, and methodsdescribed herein, such as faster response times and less dependence onnetwork conditions when transmitting and receiving data.

Although various components of computing device 200 are describedseparately, functionality of the various components may be combinedand/or performed by a single component and/or multiple computing devicesin communication without departing from the invention.

Predicting Item Level Data Using Merchant Advertisement

Item level data prediction systems may generate item level data based onmerchant advertisements, particularly in situations where multipletransactions share a common payment amount. An item level dataprediction system may make such predictions based on public accessibleadvertisement information without requiring any further proprietaryinformation from the merchants. In addition, the customers may not needto provide any additional information either except that they may makeregular transactions with the merchants. The common payment amount mayindicate that many users have purchased similar items promoted by amerchant in a geographic area. As such, the common payment amount mayindicate meaningful transaction level information that may be used toinfer item level data corresponding to these transactions. FIG. 3 showsa flow chart of a process for predicting item level data using merchantadvertisement according to one or more aspects of the disclosure. Someor all of the steps of process 300 may be performed using one or morecomputing devices as described herein.

At step 310, a transaction pattern may be determined. In the event thatthe item level data prediction system detects many customers arespending the same amount at a merchant in a geographic area, it islikely that these customers may have purchased the same item or samegroups of items at this merchant. A merchant in a geographic area, suchas a Target store in Washington D.C. may run a promotion during BlackFriday that all game consoles are advertised as $299. The advertisementmay attract potential buyers who are interested in the game consoles tothis Target store in D. C. The merchant (e.g. Target store in D.C.) maygenerate many transactions corresponding to the game consoles and themerchant may send numerous authentication requests to a financialinstitution such as a credit card company to approve these transactions.In response, the financial institution may detect a surge oftransactions that each has a charge of $318 from the Target store inD.C. area. The financial institution may be aware that this transactionamount is meaningful given that the sales tax rate in D.C. is 6%. Theitem level data prediction system may recognize that a total transactionamount of $318 corresponds to a basic transaction amount of $299 plus atax amount. The item level data prediction system may detect that manycustomers have spent $299 to purchase certain products in this Targetstore in D.C. area. The price of $299 may be recognized as a commonpayment amount among these customers. Because the financial institutionmay receive the transaction information as soon as the purchases aremade, the item level data prediction may detect the transaction patternin real time.

At step 312, advertisement information may be retrieved. Theadvertisement information may be collected by the advertisementcollection system via publicly accessible resources and the predictionserver systems may retrieve the advertisement information from theadvertisement collection systems. In a variety of embodiments, theadvertisement information may include an online advertisement from awebsite of the merchant. The item level prediction systems may use webscraping and other web automation to interact with a merchant's website,enter a zip code corresponding to the geographic area, and retrieve therelevant advertisement information. The advertisement information mayinclude advertisement flyers distributed by the merchant advertisingcertain products, and the flyers may be scanned and stored as documentsin PDF or other formats. The advertisement flyers may also be availableonline. The advertisement information may be associated with a merchantin a geographic area, such as a zip code. The advertisement informationmay be associated with a certain period of time, such as a campaignperiod. For example, a Target store may advertise products for saleduring Black Friday or a Starbucks store may run a special three hourpromotion on a soy latte.

At step 314, the advertisement information may be parsed. Theadvertisement information may be parsed by the prediction serversystems. The advertisement may also be parsed by the advertisementcollection system. In a variety of embodiments, the item level dataprediction system may parse the advertisement information using varioustechnologies. For example, an advertisement may state “all video gameconsoles are $299” on a merchant's website or a flyer. The advertisementinformation may be parsed using NLP to process the language of theadvertisement and extract the relevant information such as the names ofthe advertised products (“all video game consoles”) and thecorresponding prices (“$299”).

The advertisement information may be parsed using image recognition. Forexample, the item level data prediction system may recognize an image ofa game console such as an XBOX One and a dollar sign associated with theimage indicating its price is $299. The advertisement information may beparsed using OCR. For example, the item level data prediction system mayconvert advertisement information in a scanned document, a photo of adocument, or printed text into machine-encoded text, which may berecognized by the item level data prediction system. The item level dataprediction system may extract the relevant information to generate aprice list including the names of the advertised products and thecorresponding prices.

The advertisement information may be parsed using a template logicmodel. For example, the item level data prediction system may recognizean image of a game console, recognize it as an XBOX One and a numberthat is closest to the image indicating a price of the XBOX One. Withthe relevant information extracted from the advertisement information,the item level data prediction system may generate a price list thatincludes the advertised products, such as an XBOX One, a Playstation 4(PS4) and a Nintendo Switch, each may be associated with a price tag of$299.

At step 316, a number of transactions that share the common paymentamount may be determined. The item level data prediction system maydetermine that a number of such transactions satisfies a thresholdvalue. In the example of a common payment amount of $318, the item leveldata prediction system may determine how many transactions that each hasspent the common payment amount of $318. In a variety of embodiments, tofilter out transactions that are not meaningful, the item level dataprediction system may set a threshold value such as 100 transactions,indicating that a large number of customers have purchased certain itemsor products promoted by the advertisement. The item level dataprediction system may trigger further action to analyze the transactiondata when the number of transactions following a certain pattern hasreached the threshold value. For example, the item level data predictionsystem may not collect the advertisement information from a merchant andparse the advertisement information until the transaction pattern istriggered and the number of relevant transactions has reached athreshold value. This mechanism may avoid wasting computing resources toprematurely collect advertisement information from a merchant, before atransaction pattern is detected.

In addition to the threshold value for the number of transactions, itemlevel data prediction system may also set a threshold amount withrespect to the common payment amount. For example, the item level dataprediction system may ignore transactions with a common payment amountthat is less than $10 in a Target store, and only consider patternedtransactions above this threshold amount. The item level data predictionsystem may prune trivial transactions that may correspond to a largecombination of inexpensive products. For purchases made in a Targetstore, the customers may be less interested in knowing the details ontrivial transactions, which may offer less insights into customers'spending habits. On the other hand, tracking and analyzing the trivialtransactions may be computationally expensive and resource draining. Inthe example of a Starbucks store, the item level data prediction systemmay not set a threshold amount and the item level data prediction systemmay prefer to track all the transactions in the coffee shop regardlessof the transaction amount. Once the item level data prediction systemdetermines that number of the meaningful patterned transactions hasreached a threshold value, the process may proceed to step 318.

At step 318, after determining the threshold values is satisfied, itemsfrom the price list may be matched with the common payment amount. In avariety of embodiments, the item level data prediction system may cachea price list generated from step 312. Alternatively, because the itemlevel data prediction system may determine that the threshold issatisfied immediately after the transactions occur, the item level dataprediction system may retrieve and parse the advertisement informationin real time to generate the price list using the most currentadvertisement information. In this example, the advertisementinformation may be collected and parsed after the transaction pattern isdetected, which may avoid wasting computing resource compared to thepre-cached approach.

In a variety of embodiments, the item level data prediction system mayuse an algorithm of least items in the transaction to match the itemsfrom the price list to the common payment amount. For example, tosatisfy the common payment amount of $299, the customer may havepurchased 299 rolls of tapes. Alternatively, the customer may havepurchased an XBOX One game console for $299. The item level dataprediction system may choose the XBOX One to satisfy the transactionamount of $299, given that a customer is more likely to purchase a gameconsole than 299 rolls of tapes. The item level data prediction systemmay use a most expensive items possible algorithm. For example, tosatisfy the common payment amount of $299, the item level dataprediction system may identify either an XBOX One or two Lego sets, witheach set priced at $149.50, from the price list. In the example of mostexpensive items possible algorithm, the item level data predictionsystem may pick the XBOX One, rather than the two Lego sets to satisfythe payment amount of $299.

In a variety of embodiments, the item level data prediction system mayidentify a single item or a series of items that may be possible tomatch the total transaction amount. For example, the item level dataprediction system may identify either the XBOX One or two Lego sets thatsatisfies the payment amount of $299. In another example, if there areseveral types of game consoles on sale, and each has a price tag of$299, the item level data prediction system may identify each type ofgame console, such as an XBOX One, a PS4, or a Nintendo Switch as thelikely items from the price list to match the transaction amount. In theevent that a customer has entered a search term for XBOX One to querythe purchase history, the item level data prediction system mayautomatically identify the XBOX One as the likely item to match thetransaction amount.

At step 320, the transaction records may be updated to indicate likelyitem level transaction information. The item level data predictionsystem may update the transaction record for a customer after the likelyitems have been identified. In a variety of embodiments, once atransaction pattern has been detected, and the likely items matching thecommon payment amount have been identified, the item level dataprediction system may update all new transactions record with the itemlevel data as these new transactions occur in real time. The item leveldata prediction system may update the transaction records retroactivelyto the transactions that have occurred previously, as long as they sharethe common payment amount within a certain period of time. The itemlevel data prediction system may also update the transaction record onlywhen the customer has initiated an online banking session with thefinancial institution. For example, the customer may connect via a userdevice to query the transaction history of a credit card. The item leveldata prediction system may also update the transaction records for thecustomers automatically without any user interaction.

At step 322, the likely item level transaction information associatedwith a transaction may be presented to a user. Having the item leveldata available may be beneficial both for the customers and for thefinancial institutions. Based on the item level transaction information,the user may have the ability to conduct more personalized searches orbe presented with more personalized advertisements. For example, acustomer may search the transaction history of a credit card account tofind out when a Nintendo Switch was purchased and there may be a oneyear manufacturer warranty on the product. The item level dataprediction system may be able to provide the item level data based on atransaction amount and offer more insights into the customer'stransaction history. The item level data prediction system may be ableto match the likely items to the common payment amount withoutrequesting further information either from the merchants or from thecustomers. A variety of techniques for matching the likely items aredescribed with respect to FIG. 4.

Matching Items with Common Payment Amount

The item level data prediction system may consider tax information inattempting to match the items from the price list with the commonpayment amount. The tax rate corresponding to the geographic area wherea merchant is located may offer further insights into the transactiondetails. FIG. 4 shows a flow chart of a process for matching the itemswith the common payment amount according to one or more aspects of thedisclosure. Some or all of the steps of process 400 may be performedusing one or more computing devices as described herein.

At step 410, a pre-tax amount for the items may be determined based onthe price list. The price list may include a list of advertised productsand the corresponding prices, which are the pre-tax amount. The itemslisted on the price list may be a subset of all products that areavailable for sale from a merchant, because the price list may onlyinclude promoted products that are on sale for a period of time, such asa campaign period of the advertisements. In the event that a transactionpattern triggers the item level data prediction system to collect andparse the advertisement information, the items listed on the price listmay be further filtered with the items that are currently on saleaccording to the advertisements.

At step 412, a tax rate for the items may be determined based on thegeographic area. The item level data prediction system may include a taxdatabase which stores information such as the zip codes corresponding tothe geographic areas of the merchants, the city and state tax ratescorresponding to the zip codes, and the various tax rates based on thetypes of the products. For example, the item level data predictionsystem may determine that a merchant with a zip code 20005 is located inmetro Washington D.C. area and the city tax rate is 6%. The tax rate maychange for different types of items. For instance, a location may have acity tax rate of 5%, a state tax rate of 1%, but not apply the city taxrate of clothing. In a variety of embodiments, the item level dataprediction system may exclude the items on the price list whose pricesare above the common payment amount. The item level data predictionsystem may determine the tax amount for the items on the price listwhose prices are less than the common payment amount and calculate thetax amount based on the tax rate.

At step 414, the items may be matched with the common payment amountbased on the pre-tax amount and the tax rate. Due to the variations inthe tax rates of various merchants and their products, if there is anexact match between the items from the price list and the common paymentamount, it may be likely that the customers have purchased these items.The tax information may serve as a verification step to facilitate thematching process. The matching result may be further verified by userinteractions as described herein.

Generating Item Level Data Based on User Interactions

FIG. 5 shows a flow chart of a process for generating item level databased on user interactions according to one or more aspects of thedisclosure. Some or all of the steps of process 500 may be performedusing one or more computing devices as described herein.

At step 510, different combinations of items that match the commonpayment amount may be determined. The item level data prediction systemmay identify a variety of items from the price list that match thecommon payment amount. For example, an advertisement from a Target storestates that “all video game consoles are on sale for $299.” For a commonpayment amount of $318, there may be three items—an XBOX One, a PS4 or aNintendo Switch—that match the pre-tax transaction amount of $299. Theitem level data prediction system may identify all three combinations ofitems.

In another example, the advertisement from the Target store states that“all video game consoles are on sale for 299, and all video games are9.99.” For a common payment amount of $524, the item level dataprediction system may determine that this transaction amount maycorrespond to the price of a game console and 10 video games. As such,there may be three items—an XBOX One, a PS4 or a Nintendo Switch—thatmatch the pre-tax transaction amount of $299. There may be ten videogames to be included in the transactions, although the exact names ofthe video games remain unknown. The item level data prediction systemmay identify the combination of the video console and ten unknown videogames.

At step 512, a meta tag may be generated for the items in eachcombination. The item level data prediction system may generate a metatag “video game console” for the XBOX One, the PS4 or the NintendoSwitch in the combinations of items that match the common paymentamount. The item level data prediction system may generate a meta tag“video game” for the ten unknown video games from the price list. In theexample that two Lego sets match the price of $299, the item level dataprediction system may generate a meta tag “Lego set” for each Lego set.

At step 514, options may be generated corresponding to the combinationsof the items. Each combination of items that match the common paymentamount may be presented as different options. For example, a firstoption may be a XBOX One, a second option may be a PS4, and a thirdoption may be a Nintendo Switch. Each option may have a generic meta tag“video game console.” Each option may have a specific meta tag thatcorresponds to a XBOX One, a PS4, and a Nintendo Switch, respectively.Another option may be two Lego sets each labelled as “Lego set.”

At step 516, a selection may be received from a user. Based on the metatag, the user may make a selection to indicate what was actuallypurchased. For example, when the system identifies a transaction amountof $318 and presents two options to the user: an item with a meta tag ofa “video game console” or two items with a meta tag of “Lego set.” Basedon the meta tag, the user may make the selection corresponding to herprevious purchase.

At step 518, item level transaction information may be generatedassociated with the selection. For example, the user may make aselection of a video game console, the item level transactioninformation may be generated for the three types of game consoles. In avariety of embodiments, the item level data prediction system may askthe user to make further selections based on the specific meta tag of anXBOX One, a PS4, and a Nintendo Switch. The item level data predictionsystem may generate more specific item level transaction informationbased on the selection. The item level data prediction system may alsogenerate the item level transaction information without furtherinteraction from the user. For example, a user may have previouslysearched the purchase history for an XBOX One, the item level dataprediction system may infer that the best match is the XBOX One in lieuof the PS4 and generate item level transaction information automaticallywithout further user inputs.

Parsing Advertisement Information

The item level data prediction system may use a machine learningalgorithm to parse the advertisement information, as discussed abovewith respect to FIG. 3. FIG. 6 shows a flow chart of a process forparsing the advertisement information with further details according toone or more aspects of the disclosure. Some or all of the steps ofprocess 600 may be performed using one or more computing devices asdescribed herein.

At step 610, advertisement information may be gathered. The item leveldata prediction system may use a machine learning algorithm toautomatically gather the advertisement information. The item level dataprediction system may use web scraping to extract advertisementinformation from the web sites of the merchants. For example, the itemlevel data prediction system may use scripts to specify there are fivesteps to pull the advertisement information from the web site of aTarget store. The item level data prediction system may use machinelearning to recognize the different elements on the web site to click onin order to extract the advertisement information or these elements maybe programmatically set.

At step 612, advertisement information may be parsed using OCR. Given animage representing printed text, the item level data prediction systemmay determine the corresponding text in the image. For example, the itemlevel data prediction system may convert advertisement information in ascanned document, a photo of a document, or printed text intomachine-encoded text, which may be recognized by the item level dataprediction system. The item level data prediction system may extract therelevant information to generate a list of the names of the advertisedproducts and the corresponding prices.

At step 614, advertisement information may be parsed using NLP toprocess the advertisement information, generate rules and identify theintended semantics. For example, the advertisement information may beparsed using NLP to process the language of the advertisement andextract the relevant information such as the names of the advertisedproducts (“all video game consoles”) and the corresponding prices(“$299”). For an advertisement stating that “$9.99 for any of thefollowing games,” the item level data prediction system may associatethe price $9.99 with all 20 pictures below the statement. The item leveldata prediction system may also layer the NLP approach over the templatelogic algorithm, as discussed in detail with respect to step 618.

At step 616, advertisement information may be parsed using imagerecognition. The item level data prediction system may use imagerecognition to identify what is in the pictures. Generally, computerprograms may have difficulties recognizing the picture when the pictureis taken from a strange angle, or has undisguisable background. However,the item level data prediction system may recognize the images of theadvertisements with high confidence, because these advertisements weregenerated by computer programs online and extracted from the merchantweb sites. The item level data prediction system may recognize theimages, and translate them to obtain the product names, descriptions andprices.

At step 618, advertisement information may be parsed using a templatelogic algorithm. The numbers and letters may appear on an advertisementin random places, without indicating their relations to the items in theadvertisement. The item level data prediction system may use templatelogic algorithm to recognize the locations of the numbers and letters,and their relations to each other. The item level data prediction systemmay also recognize the relations of the numbers and letters to thepictures of the items in the advertisement. The item level dataprediction system may then use image recognition to identify where andwhat the pictures are. The item level data prediction system maysubsequently recognize where the number and letters are in relation tothe images based on spatial proximity. If an image is in proximity withthe number 299, the item level data prediction system may associate theimage with the number, indicating the price of the item in the image is$299. Steps 612 to 618 may be optional, and the item level dataprediction system may perform any combination of these steps to parsethe advertisement information.

At step 620, a price list may be generated based on the parsedinformation. The item level data prediction system may generate theprice list including the names of the items, and the corresponding pricefor each item. The advertisements may specify a campaign period when thepromotion or sale is valid. The advertisements and the validation timemay be cached by the item level data prediction system. In the eventthat the item level data prediction system prefers not to parse theadvertisements to generate the price list every time it detects that atransaction amount matches a common payment amount, the price list maybe cached. The item level data prediction system may parse out theadvertisement and cache the price list for the period of time that theadvertisement is valid.

In some examples, the item level data prediction system may keep theprice list in the cache until the merchant store's closing time for theday, or the price list may be cached for 2-3 days depending on theduration of the campaign period of the advertisement. In other examples,the machine learning algorithm may recognize that a threshold of 150customers spending $318 has been reached. At that time, the item leveldata prediction system may run the machine learning algorithm to get theadvertisement information, parse the advertisement and generate theprice list. Once the threshold is reached, the item level dataprediction system may retroactively apply the item level data to alltransactions that the machine learning algorithm has recognized havingthe transaction pattern. In still other examples, item level dataprediction system may proactively apply the item level data as the newtransactions arrive in the item level data prediction system in realtime.

The item level data prediction system may recognize a transactionpattern associated with a first common payment amount. The item leveldata prediction system may cache the transaction pattern. When the itemlevel data prediction system recognizes a new transaction patternassociated with a second common payment amount, it may reset the machinelearning algorithm to cache the new transaction pattern. The item leveldata prediction system may reset the machine learning algorithm to a newtransaction pattern after the campaign period associated with theprevious transaction pattern has expired.

One or more aspects discussed herein may be embodied in computer-usableor readable data and/or computer-executable instructions, such as in oneor more program modules, executed by one or more computers or otherdevices as described herein. Generally, program modules includeroutines, programs, objects, components, data structures, and the like.that perform particular tasks or implement particular abstract datatypes when executed by a processor in a computer or other device. Themodules may be written in a source code programming language that issubsequently compiled for execution, or may be written in a scriptinglanguage such as (but not limited to) HTML or XML. The computerexecutable instructions may be stored on a computer readable medium suchas a hard disk, optical disk, removable storage media, solid-statememory, RAM, and the like. As will be appreciated by one of skill in theart, the functionality of the program modules may be combined ordistributed as desired in various embodiments. In addition, thefunctionality may be embodied in whole or in part in firmware orhardware equivalents such as integrated circuits, field programmablegate arrays (FPGA), and the like. Particular data structures may be usedto more effectively implement one or more aspects discussed herein, andsuch data structures are contemplated within the scope of computerexecutable instructions and computer-usable data described herein.Various aspects discussed herein may be embodied as a method, acomputing device, a system, and/or a computer program product.

Although the present invention has been described in certain specificaspects, many additional modifications and variations would be apparentto those skilled in the art. In particular, any of the various processesdescribed above may be performed in alternative sequences and/or inparallel (on different computing devices) in order to achieve similarresults in a manner that is more appropriate to the requirements of aspecific application. It is therefore to be understood that the presentinvention may be practiced otherwise than specifically described withoutdeparting from the scope and spirit of the present invention. Thus,embodiments of the present invention should be considered in allrespects as illustrative and not restrictive. Accordingly, the scope ofthe invention should be determined not by the embodiments illustrated,but by the appended claims and their equivalents.

What is claimed is:
 1. A computer-implemented method comprising:detecting a pattern of transactions associated with a merchant in ageographic area, wherein the pattern of transactions corresponds to agroup of transactions that each share a common payment amount; afterdetecting the pattern, retrieving advertisement information associatedwith the merchant in the geographic area within a certain period oftime; parsing the advertisement information to generate a price list foradvertised products; determining that a number of transactions in thegroup of transactions, that share the common payment amount, satisfies athreshold value; after the determining that the number of transactionssatisfies the threshold value, and based on the price list, matchingitems from the advertised products with the common payment amount by:generating a meta tag for each combination of items that matches thecommon payment amount; generating options corresponding to a pluralityof combinations of items; presenting the options to a user to indicatelikely item level transaction information; receiving a selection from auser for an option based on the meta tag; and generating item leveltransaction information associated with the selection; updating, basedon the matching, transaction records of user accounts to indicate thelikely item level transaction information for the matched items; andpresenting, to a user, an indication of a first transaction, of thegroup of transactions, with the likely item level transactioninformation.
 2. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, wherein thematching comprises: determining a pre-tax amount for the items based onthe price list; determining a tax rate for the items based on thegeographic area; and matching the items with the common payment amountbased on the pre-tax amount and the tax rate.
 3. Thecomputer-implemented method of claim 1, wherein the matching comprises:matching the items with the common payment amount using a least itemsalgorithm.
 4. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, whereinparsing the advertisement information further comprises: parsing theadvertisement information using natural language processing (NLP). 5.The computer-implemented method of claim 1, wherein parsing theadvertisement information further comprises: parsing the advertisementinformation using a template.
 6. The computer-implemented method ofclaim 1 wherein parsing the advertisement information further comprises:parsing the advertisement information using image recognition.
 7. Thecomputer-implemented method of claim 1, wherein the certain period oftime is associated with an advertisement campaign period.
 8. Thecomputer-implemented method of claim 1, wherein retrieving theadvertisement information further comprises: automatically retrievingthe advertisement information from a web site of the merchant.
 9. Acomputing device comprising: a geographic tax database; one or moreprocessors; and memory storing instructions that, when executed by theone or more processors, cause the computing device to: detect a patternof transactions associated with a merchant in a geographic area, whereinthe pattern of transactions corresponds to a group of transactions thateach share a common payment amount; after the detecting, retrieveadvertisement information associated with the merchant in the geographicarea within a certain period of time; parse the advertisementinformation to generate a price list for advertised products; determinethat a number of transactions in the group of transactions, that sharethe common payment amount, satisfies a threshold value; afterdetermining that the number of transactions satisfies the thresholdvalue, and based on the price list, matching items from the advertisedproducts with the common payment amount by: determining a pre-tax amountfor the items based on the price list; retrieving, from the geographictax database, a tax rate for the items based on the geographic area;matching the items with the common payment amount based on the pre-taxamount and the tax rate; generating a meta tag for each combination ofitems that matches the common payment amount; generating optionscorresponding to a plurality of combinations of items; presenting theoptions to a user to indicate likely item level transaction information;receiving a selection from a user for an option based on the meta tag;and generating item level transaction information associated with theselection; update, based on the matching, transaction records of useraccounts to indicate the likely item level transaction information forthe matched items; and presenting, to a user, an indication of a firsttransaction, of the group of transactions, with the likely item leveltransaction information.
 10. The computing device of claim 9, whereinthe instructions cause the computing device to: match the items from theadvertised products with the common payment amount using a least itemsalgorithm.
 11. The computing device of claim 9, wherein the certainperiod of time is associated with an advertisement campaign period. 12.The computing device of claim 9, wherein the instructions cause thecomputing device to: automatically retrieve the advertisementinformation from a web site of the merchant.
 13. The computing device ofclaim 9, wherein the instructions cause the computing device to: parsethe advertisement information using natural language processing (NLP).14. The computing device of claim 9, wherein the instructions cause thecomputing device to: parse the advertisement information using atemplate.
 15. The computing device of claim 9, wherein the instructionscause the computing device to: parse the advertisement information usingimage recognition.
 16. One or more non-transitory media storinginstructions that, when executed by one or more processors, cause theone or more processors to perform steps comprising: detecting a patternof transactions associated with a merchant in a geographic area, whereinthe pattern of transactions corresponds to a group of transactions thateach share a common payment amount; after the detecting, retrievingadvertisement information associated with the merchant in the geographicarea within a certain period of time; parsing the advertisementinformation to generate a price list for advertised products;determining that a number of transactions in the group of transactions,that share the common payment amount, satisfies a threshold value; afterthe determining that the number of transactions satisfies the thresholdvalue, and based on the price list, determining a pre-tax amount for theadvertised products based on the price list; determining a tax rate forthe advertised products based on the geographic area; matching itemsfrom the advertised products with the common payment amount based on thepre-tax amount and the tax rate; generating a meta tag for eachcombination of items that matches the common payment amount; generatingoptions corresponding to a plurality of combinations of items;presenting the options to a user to indicate likely item leveltransaction information; receiving a selection from the user for anoption based on the meta tag; and generating item level transactioninformation associated with the selection; updating, based on thematching, transaction records of user accounts to indicate the itemlevel transaction information; and presenting, to a user, an indicationof a first transaction, of the group of transactions, with the itemlevel transaction information.